This invention relates to a hull construction for a small watercraft and more particularly to an improved buoyancy arrangement for such a hull, a ventilating arrangement for the hull and also a system for draining water from the deck area of the hull.
Obviously, the hull of a watercraft should be buoyant when the watercraft is in its normal upright condition. However, with certain types of watercraft, it is also desirable to insure that the hull will be buoyant even when the watercraft is inverted or capsized. This is particularly true with small sporting type watercraft, particularly those of the jet propelled type, which frequently become displaced during operation. Although the buoyancy of the watercraft and its hull can be assured by providing water tight compartments, this adds significantly to the cost of the watercraft and, furthermore, provides areas that cannot be used for other purposes and thus is not practical with small sporting type watercraft of the type described. Also, it is not practical to seal all of the compartments of a watercraft since many of the compartments require the admission of outside air and the exhaust of gases from the compartment. For example, the engine compartment cannot be fully sealed because intake air must be supplied for the engine and some means must be provided so as to exhaust the combustion products from the engine. A device has been proposed for attempting to employ the engine compartment as a buoyancy device by the provision of a vent tube that extends into the engine compartment and which is disposed so that its ends are not submerged either when the hull is in its normal position or in an inverted position. Although in principle this sounds desirable, in practice it is quite difficult to achieve.
It is, therefore, a principal object of this invention to provide an improved buoyancy arrangement for the hull of a small watercraft.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a hull for a small watercraft that has several different types of buoyancy increasing devices so as to insure that the hull will be buoyant either in its normal position or in an inverted position.
In addition to supplying air to the engine for its combustion and discharging the exhaust gases from the engine, it is further desirable to provide additional air ventilation for the engine compartment. That is, it is desirable to insure that there is some continuous form of air circulation through the engine compartment in addition to the air that is consumed by the engine for its combustion. Such ventilation of the engine compartment will remove unwanted vapors from the engine compartment and also will insure an adequate engine cooling and cooling of the other components in the engine compartment which do not have their own cooling systems.
It is, therefore, a still further object of this invention to provide an improved arrangement for ventilating the engine compartment of a small watercraft.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an improved ventilating arrangement for a small watercraft of the jet propelled type.
As has been previously noted, certain sporting type of watercrafts are designed so that they may readily capsize in use. It has been found that the righting of a capsized watercraft can be significantly accommodated if the rider's foot area opens through the transom of the watercraft. In this way, if the watercraft becomes capsized and the hull and rider's foot area becomes filled with water, it is possible to drain the water from the hull when righting the watercraft so as to facilitate reentry. However, when the foot area opens through the transom of the watercraft, there is the possibility that water can enter into the foot area during normal vessel operation. Although this type of watercraft has sporting characteristics, it is also desirable to insure that the watercraft can be operated without the riders becoming wet if they do not choose to become wet.
In order to permit the use of the foot area as a drain for the water and also so as to insure that water will not enter the foot area during normal operation, there have been proposed arrangements wherein there is a small dam at the rear of the foot area and a one-way check valve will permit water to flow out of the foot area through the transom of the hull but not return. This has considerable advantages and it is a further object of this invention to provide an improved and simplified dam and check valve assembly for this purpose.